THE LEARNED MEN Gustavus S. Paine Thomas Y. Crowell Company
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THE LEARNED MEN Gustavus S. Paine Thomas Y. Crowell Company New York . Established 1834 GUSTAVUS S. PAINE TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 3 PREFACE. 5 1. AT HAMPTON COURT.. 17 2. BISHOP’S MOVE. 23 3. PURITANS’ PROGRESS. 29 4. THE WESTMINSTER GROUPS. 33 5. THE OXFORD GROUPS. 41 6. THE CAMBRIDGE GROUPS. 47 7. STARTING THE WORK. 55 8. KING’S PLEASURE.. 61 9. HOLY WAR. 67 10. PRIVATE FORTUNES. 73 11. THE GOOD WORK. 79 12. THE FINAL TOUCHES. 89 13. THE BIBLE PRINTED. 95 14. REWARDS AND SEQUELS. 103 15. THE BIBLE OF THE LEARNED MEN LASTS. 113 APPENDIX I: THE TRANSLATORS. 123 APPENDIX II: COMPARATIVE READINGS. 125 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 139 INDEX (Not Yet Compiled). 145 -2- Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following: To the Bodleian Library, Oxford, to the British Museum, London, to the Lambeth Palace Library, and to Cambridge University Library for information and copies of original manuscripts. To the American Historical Society, New York, to the Folger Library, Washington, and to Yale University Library for the use of source materials. To the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York, and to the rare book room of the New York Public Library, for valuable aid in research. To Miss Margaret T. Hills of the American Bible Society, New York, for the loan of illustrative prints. To the National Portrait Gallery, London, for the portrait of Bishop Bancroft. To Dr. Frederick C. Grant of Union Theological Seminary for comment on the Bois notes. To the Public Trustee for the Estate of Bernard Shaw, and to the Society of Authors, London, for permission to quote from the preface to Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God. And to Wanda Willson Whitman, the friend who has been associated with this book from the very start. It was she who suggested the original idea, nourished it with her interest and encouragement, and, when the author was no longer here to complete his work, edited the manuscript with skill, integrity, and affection. -3- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE King James I o£ England and VI of Scotland, whose royal command in support of the Puritan proposal for a new Bible translation persuaded the bishops of the Church of England to approve the project. -4- Preface What good can it do us to know more about the men who made the King James Bible and about their work on it? Just how did these chosen men revise the Bible from 1604 to 1611? Who were these men and what were their careers? Were they happy, in their labor? Did they live with success after they finished it? How did it affect them? How does the King James Bible differ from Bibles before and after it? Could a group or groups turn out better writing than a single person? These are some of the questions I aim to answer in this volume. The King James men were minor writers, though great scholars, doing superb writing. Their task lifted them above themselves, while they leaned firmly on their subjects. Many have written in wonder about what they achieved. I quote here only from one ardent man with Bible learning, and from one who admired the product while he scorned ways of worship. Dr. F. William Faber: “It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative o£ his best moments; and all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible.” H. L. Mencken: “It is the most beautiful of all the translations of the Bible; indeed, it is probably the most beautiful piece of writing in all the literature of the world. Many attempts have been made to purge it of its errors and obscurities. An English Revised Version was published in 1885 and an American Revised Version in 1901, and since then many learned but misguided men have sought to produce translations that should be mathematically accurate, and in the plain speech of everyday. But the Authorized Version has never yielded to any of them, for it is palpably and overwhelmingly better than they are, just as it is better than the Greek New Testament, or the Vulgate, or the Septuagint. Its English is extraordinarily simple, pure, eloquent, and lovely. It is a mine of lordly and incomparable poetry, at once the most stirring and the most touching ever heard of.” One of its great virtues is that it allows and impels us to put an^ part of it into other words, into our words, that we may get glimpses of more meanings from it and then turn back to it with more delight and profit than ever before. The King James men surpassed us in these respects, that they were scholars, and that they had Elizabethan command over language. At the same time they were like us, of the people, earnest, and at the bottom sweet and sound. We surpass them in our wide modern range of words. At present many urge us in all sorts of projects to “do it yourself.” I hope that as you read about these men and what they did you may feel the urge to create the Bible afresh for yourself, to revise the phrases in any way you please, and then to compare your wordings with what we have so long deemed our standard Scriptures. Thus you may keep the Bible alive for yourself, really be active as you read and study it, and be at one with the learned men, those common people who gave us their splendid best. -5- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE Title page from the first edition o£ the King James Bible, showing Moses (left), Aaron (right), and the gospel writers. -6- THE LEARNED MEN Doctor John Rainolds, Puritan, spoke at Hampton Court of the need for a new translation. Called the most learned man in England, Rainolds worked with the Oxford group that translated the Old Testament, but he died before the new Bible was completed. -7- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London, as a high churchman opposed Rainolds’ Puritan proposals yet moved with energy for the new Bible when the King approved. After the death of John Whitgift, Bancroft was rewarded with the Archbishopric of Canterbury. -8- THE LEARNED MEN George Abbot, among the New Testament translators at Oxford, followed Bancroft as Bishop and became Archbishop in time to oppose the tyranny of Laud. His engraved portrait is from the title page of his book, A Brief Description of the Whole World, as published in 1656. -9- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE Lancelot Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, chose many other translators and led the Westminster group translating from the Hebrew. Andrewes had been a chaplain to Elizabeth; he was a friend of Bacon and Spenser, and young John Milton wrote his elegy, when, in 1626, he died. -10- THE LEARNED MEN Thomas Ravis, Dean of Christ Church and later Warden of New College, was head of the New Testament translators at Oxford. A high churchman, Ravis opposed Puritan teachings. He signed the document that asked promotion for another translator, Dean Thorne. -11- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE Sir Henry Savile, considered the handsomest of the translators, had tutored Queen Elizabeth in Greek and mathematics. Provost of Eton, then Warden of Merton, he worked with the Greek group at Oxford, where he lectured on the Greek philosophers and Euclid. -12- THE LEARNED MEN Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, worked with the Cambridge translators and was one of the two final editors. His high church views and zeal for the Establishment balanced the Puritan leanings of Miles Smith, who followed him in the see of Winchester. -13- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE Doctor Miles Smith worked in the Oxford group that translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He also served as final editor of the whole translation and wrote the eloquent preface, “Address to the Reader,” which was part of the 1611 edition. -14- THE LEARNED MEN Hampton Court, where the conference which sponsored new translation was held. The entrance gate pictured has been changed since it was built by Cardinal Wolsey. -15- GUSTAVUS S. PAINE -16- CHAPTER 1 At Hampton Court “May your Majesty be pleased,” said Dr. John Rainolds in his address to the king, “to direct that the Bible be now translated, such versions as are extant not answering to the original.” Rainolds was a Puritan, and the Bishop of London felt it his duty to disagree. “If every man’s humor might be followed,” snorted His Grace, “there would be no end to translating.” King James was quick to put both factions down. “I profess,” he said, “I could never yet see a Bible well translated in English, but I think that of Geneva is the worst.” These few dissident words started the greatest writing project the world has ever known, and the greatest achievement of the reign of James I—the making of the English Bible which has ever since borne his name. The day was Monday, January 16, 1604. The scene was the palace at Hampton Court, with its thousand rooms built by Cardinal Wolsey and successfully coveted by Henry VIII.